You have my sympathy, I've never had a gap like that but I have struggled with job hunts in less tech friendly areas. I mean this constructively so please don'

You have my sympathy, I've never had a gap like that but I have struggled with job hunts in less tech friendly areas. I mean this constructively so please don't take it as a knock, but you seem to be coming at the interviews from a somewhat adversarial perspective. This sentence is what stood out to me in particular: > Most employers (or their needlessly combative tech hiring staff, anyway) seem to make a point of saying cutting comments to me about my university degrees (two Ivy degrees) and my Stack Overflow rep -- even though I don't ever try to project pride about these things and fully welcome and prefer to be judged solely by my talents and do not want any form of laurel-resting, especially not based on "prestigious" degrees (though, to be fair, I did work extremely hard in university and accomplished many things that now seemingly no one cares about). Perhaps they were joking around with you about it as a way to acknowledge your pretty formidable credentials? This strikes me as a very odd response (on their part) and I wouldn't expect to see it again and again which is what makes me think you might be misinterpreting their intent. Anyway, I'm not you. Best of luck to you, I hope you find what you are looking for.